Alias System

Nxt’s Alias System essentially allows one piece of text to be substituted for another. This means that a long, complicated or hard-to-remember string of data can be replaced by a shorter one.

The main advantage of this is the convenience it offers. You can use a single word or phrase to represent something far more complex: your account details for Nxt or another cryptocurrency; a telephone number or physical address; a website, IP address or email; or almost anything else you might need. As Nxt developers further and more applications are built on its platform, the Alias System could be used to facilitate shopping cart applications, register SKUs, implement a decentralised DNS system, and more.

Examples

One of the simplest and most convenient uses of the Alias System is to create one for your own Nxt account number, replacing a long string of characters with something easier for you and other people to remember.

You could also Alias a term such as ‘search’ to ‘www.google.com’. You would then be able to type ‘nxt:searc’ into the URL bar of a Nxt-enabled browser, and it would automatically translate the text to the right page. This allows a set of shared tools to be built up by a community of users.

How does it work?

Aliases can be registered using the Nxt client. You can search existing Aliases and reserve unused ones. Aliases can be mapped to an account, a URI or other data, and can be bought, sold and transferred to other users. You can also change the function of an Alias once you have registered it.